To think parents don't honestly behave like this...

[DumplingsAreRank]

... ahead of the new serious of Waterloo Road (yes, I am that retro) I am rewatching some old series.

One of the kids, Scout, has witnessed her mother walk out with a new bloke for some "alone time" destroying her opportunity to get an education and leaving a 3 year old without a mum.

Parents wouldn't actually do this would they? It's make believe surely

@orangeisthenewpuce

I'd seriously love to know what reasons or excuses mothers give for abandoning their children. I cannot understand why they do it, it's so cruel and callous. Yes, I know fathers do it too, but because I'm a mum I'm interested in what mothers say.

Are you or are you just interested in judging?

It is bloody complicated and often involves mental health problems, abuse (current or historic), substance addiction, etc.

It is easy to judge and harder to understand.

@orangeisthenewpuce

I'd seriously love to know what reasons or excuses mothers give for abandoning their children. I cannot understand why they do it, it's so cruel and callous. Yes, I know fathers do it too, but because I'm a mum I'm interested in what mothers say.

I suspect there are many complex reasons which are individual to each case. Attachment issues, historic/current abuse, addictions, mental health issues… I doubt many mothers do it on a whim.

My exes mum left him.(aged 5) and his brother ,3 for a 19 year old man she met at work.
He didn't see her for months afterwards.

@carefullycourageous yes I am interested. I'm interested in hearing it from the women who've done it. Not from you.

My mother split from my ddad, started going out with someone new and sent me to live with my dad with 1 carrier bag of clothes. I was under 2. Put my half siblings in to care for a while because their dad wouldn't take them.
Yes it happens!

Well I don't expect you'll find them posting on Mumsnet

And I hope they don't reply to you if they are TBH because you do sound judgemental. Reasons or excuses. FFS.

@BertieBotts

Well I don't expect you'll find them posting on Mumsnet

There might be someone who's done it on Mumsnet. But you're right, they probably wouldn't post about it.

@Lalliella

There’s some snobbishness and generalisations on this thread. I know of a very naice middle class above average age mum who left her kids for another bloke. They were devastated.

Yep, my family would be considered I guess lower middle class, my auntie walked out on my uncle and cousins when they were 7, 12, 15 and 17 because she met a man online from Spain who lived with his mum, she walked out to go and live with him and his mum until they kicked her out 6 months later cause she was so lazy. My cousins have some relationship with her now and she now says she's was forced out because my uncle wouldn't leave lol

[quote orangeisthenewpuce]@carefullycourageous yes I am interested. I'm interested in hearing it from the women who've done it. Not from you. [/quote]
How do you know I haven't done it?

I worked in a PRU. The things I’ve seen and heard would make you despair.

Kids are rarely badly behaved without reason.

I use to love Waterloo road til they went all PC

Yes it absolutely does happen. One of my friends mother just walked out one day & left her in the highchair - she was only found by someone who looked through the letter box. Her mother never returned & although she has some contact now she's never had a real relationship with her mother.
It definitely does happen

Of course some parents are capable of that and much much worse. Parents are just people. Having a child doesn't automatically make someone a decent or caring person. Some people strive hard to be good parents when they have children, but most people will be essentially unchanged from the person they were before, whether that is an essentially decent person or an abusive one. There are horrible people out there and they become horrible parents.

My grandparents would have physical fights, if my grandad didn’t get up for work on time my grandmother would throw water over him. When my mum was 7 her mum walked out leaving her and her younger brother to be raised by their dad while she and her boyfriend went to Rhodesia. A couple of years later my grandmother returned with her boyfriend and tried to get her children back by claiming my grandad was violent. Her lawyer said she would never get them back on those grounds as if he was really that bad then why did she leave her children with him???

My grandad was a good parent who did everything he could to raise his children right and he never remarried. My mum still has no relationship with her mum even though she has tried over the years and particularly when we were young.

Someone I know walked out on her 4 children under 7. They are in care.

Yes it happened to us.
My mam left with the bloke she was having an affair with.
She then decided later on that she wanted us.
I for one would have been better off if I had been able to stay with my dad

My mum walked out back in the 70s leaving us (6 children, oldest 11 youngest 1) with our violent, alcoholic father. We spent 3 yrs with me and my sister (the oldest 2) looking after the other 4 while he was passed out drunk or in the pub. We had no food, no clean clothes, no money and we didn't go to school. 3yrs before anyone stepped in and removed us to care.

There's nothing new about the scenario you are describing, it's been going on forever, people don't talk about it that's all. But you a very naive to think that 'parents' (or mothers) don't do this sort of stuff.

Parents have murdered, dumped, raped and mutilated their children, and you're baffled by what, some sort of TV show date?

What a coddled life you lead.